This invention relates generally to liquid crystal displays and particularly to cholesteric displays.
Commonly, liquid crystal material may be modulated to produce a display. Conventional liquid crystal displays commonly use twisted nematic (tn) liquid crystal materials having a pair of states that may differentially pass or reflect incident light. While twisted nematic displays may be reflective or transmissive, cholesteric displays are usually reflective (but they may also be transmissive).
In cholesteric displays, the cholesteric material has very high optical activity. Such liquid crystal material switches between a reflective texture called the planar cholesteric texture and the transparent configuration with the focal conic texture. The cholesteric molecules assume a helical configuration with the helical axis perpendicular to the surface of the substrates.
The cholesteric liquid crystal molecules, in response to an electric field, align as planar texture with the optical axis, reflecting light of a particular wavelength. Generally, the maximum reflection in the planar cholesteric texture is at a wavelength directly proportional to the material's pitch distance.
 λ0=n·p (where p=pitch length, n=(n||+n⊥)/2)
Conventionally, an electric field is applied in the direction of the optical axis in order to change the phase and the texture of the cholesteric material. However, these changes are generally in the form of the material either being reflective to the spectrum of light of a given wavelength or not reflecting light at all.
Thus, a given completed cholesteric liquid crystal cell may produce reflected light with a specific color, such as red, green or blue, but not any combination of them. Therefore, the conventional approach is to provide separate cholesteric display elements for each of the three primary colors (e.g., red, green and blue). These separate display elements may be stacked up one on top of the other in order to generate the desired full color reflected light output. Alternatively, the three elements may be placed side by side each displaying the same color. The three different colors may be achieved using color filter material.
The use of color filter material substantially reduces the display brightness and increases the overall cost of the display. Similarly, the use of three separate cells in a stack effectively triples the cost of the display. Stacked elements may even reduce the optical brightness of each display pixel.
Bistable reflective cholesteric displays are particularly advantageous for many portable applications. The bistable material is advantageous because it may be placed in one of the two states that have different optical properties. Once placed in either state, the material stays in that state even when power is removed. Thus, a given displayed pixel may remain, without refresh, in a given state until it is desired to change the optical information that is displayed. Being reflective in nature, and hence avoiding the need of backlight plus avoiding the need for refresh will substantially reduce power consumption of the display subsystem.
Thus, there is a need for displays, and particularly for bistable cholesteric displays, that can be fabricated at lower costs.